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Messiah: The Work Thus Far

The logline for Messiah would be something along the lines of, "A shaman must journey to a faraway land to stop his lost disciple from setting herself up as a god."

But it's a little more complicated than can fit in a logline. The story I have is kind of time-hoppy: it follows two main plotlines separated by seven years, and several tiny stories from different times.

The first plotline is about the shaman, Kai, and his disciple, Nike, traveling from their Roman-esque culture to a Hunnic-esque culture, hunting a Witch that threatens Bekter, an old friend of Kai's. They manage to kill the witch, but at the cost of destabilizing the entire region, and a massive war breaks out. Nike is lost, presumed dead, and Kai returns home in shame.

The second plotline is about Kai and his new discipline, August, travelling back to Bekter's people after hearing news of Nike Ascending (read: turning to the dark side) and setting herself up as a god. Along the way, they conflict with Bekter, who's still not pleased about Kai's last visit. It ends with Kai sacrificing himself to save Nike, and her ascending, not to godhood, but to spiritual leadership over the people she thought to rule.

Other minor plotlines would be about Kai meeting Bekter and their early friendship, about Kai first training Nike, and about the time period between the two main plots with Kai disgraced and eventually picking up a new disciple.

The Writing Process

At first, I was writing it in a time-jumpy format, going from story to story as I thought best, but eventually I reorganized everything chronologically, intending to finish each story individually, and then rearrange them as needed. Who knows if that was really the best way to do it, but it's what I've got, so mleh. I've got about 70 pages already written - roughly 30 of each main plot, with most of the rest going to Kai and Bekter's early years.

I was originally thinking a final page count of around 120-140, but now that I'm finishing in three weeks, it might be less. I could definitely see cutting a lot of the tertiary stories, and just focusing on the three I have so far. In that case, I think it'd be around 100-110 pages, with Kai and Bekter getting ~25 pages, and the other two getting ~ 40 pages each.

I guess that's about it. Time to stop procrastinating and finish this screenplay!